Brian Sayers

It is not easy to account for the hallucinatory power and beauty of Brian Sayers’ latest paintings. All are still lives depicting various household vessels and implements; most of these look innocent enough, although others suggest the obscure and possibly nefarious practices of a long lost civilization. Yet despite the museum-like hush in which these objects dwell, they slowly become imbued with a range of human emotions: from anxiety, to quotidian contentment by way of a dream- like introspection; all seem present in the internal arguments of these compositions.

Like earlier painters of the still life such as Zurbaran, Cotán and Morandi, Sayers achieves his uncanny effects though nuance and restraint, and through a meticulous attention to the harmonies and tensions of form. To enter his work is to enter a cabinet of curiosities in which the art of seeing is transformed into an almost mystical fascination with everyday objects, the space that surrounds them, and the relationships they may or may not have with each other, and with us.